and so his lesson that he's taken away i think from the debt ceiling debacle and the way he won the payroll tax fight in the early part of 2012 was that you win by playing the outside game, by bringing public pressure on congress. you can't win by just playing the game, as david axelrod put it once, by trying to negotiate with republicans in quite rooms. he's got to drive public pressure, and that's the only way progress is going to happen. >> we've got kevin mccarthy coming up in 30 seconds. quickly, robert gibbs, when i hear the speech last night, and it looks like he's brushing past republicans, i think back to that editorial meeting in reno, i think it was, back in 2008 where he said i want to be a transitional president like reagan. i think this is about building a center/left coalition for a generation to come. that's his goal. >> i think what john said is right. look, you're dealing with members of congress that are sitting at a 12% approval rating, right? you don't spend a lot of time in meetings thinking, what happens if we go to 7%, right? they've got -- the president has to bring